The quarterback purposefully throwing the ball out of bounds or into the ground to avoid throwing a bad pass (which might be intercepted). Intentional grounding can be difficult to call, but a referee may assign the offending team a five yard penalty and the lose of their down!.

An illegal forward pass thrown beyond the line of scrimmage without an intented reciever and no chance of completion to any offensive player. Intentional grounding is not called in the case of a spike or if the quarterback was outside the tackle box at the time of the pass.

A penalty assessed against the quarterback. When a quarterback is about to be sacked, and deliberately tries to get rid of the ball without a receiver in the area, the penalty assessed is intentional grounding. The quarterback does this to attempt to avoid a sack, which is illegal.

A penalty when a quarterback intentionally throws the ball in a place where none of his receivers can catch it or in an area without any receivers in an attempt to avoid being tackled for a loss of yardage. In addition, for this play to be a penalty, he must have thrown the ball while being in the tackle box and the ball must make it to at least the line of scrimmage. The penalty is 10 yards and a loss of down.